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Posted: 13 Feb 2013 04:00 PM PST
When HP bought Palm in 2010 it was uncertain which direction the company would take. At that time, Palm was still trying to bank on its WebOS platform and it had just launched the TouchPad. As fine as that device was — especially for those of us who like tinkering with these things — it didn’t do enough to help save the company, or WebOS. HP ended up trashing the OS, though, and it saddled the employees who didn’t leave up into a subsidiary named Gram.
Welp, here are are — nearly three years later — and the computer vendor might finally be looking to jump back into the game in a proper way. Sources speaking to ReadWrite have apparently confirmed that HP will build tablets and smartphones.  We imagine HP will attempt to start out in emerging markets to test the waters, but the company could eventually branch out with a full-blown line down the road. HP would look to do this with Android at the helm, apparently — a fine choice if we don’t say so ourselves. The company would also employ NVIDIA’s Tegra platform. HP says it would be foolish of them to stay in the past when the computing industry is evolving as quickly as it is. Traditional laptop and desktop computers are fine, but the industry is clearly fine with letting tablets and smartphones do most of the heavy lifting, and the OEM would be sorry if it were to let that opportunity slide. There’s an uphill battle to face with the likes of Apple and Samsung on the phone side, and Apple, Samsung and ASUS running things on the tablet side for the time being, so whatever HP’s plan is we don’t expect it to make drastic waves overnight. Where do you see HP sitting in the mobile realm 3 years from now? |
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Posted: 13 Feb 2013 03:35 PM PST
  With so many apps and games in the Play Store, it can be a little daunting trying to figure out which ones are worthy of spending your hard earned cash on. Thankfully you have us to go rummaging around Google’s vast app store, in hunt of the gems. What we found was a title by the name of QuestLord, a nostalgic first-person RPG created by developer Eric Kinkead. As you can no doubt already see from the screenshots, QuestLord pays homage to RPG’s of yore — the ones played on ancient PC’s that allowed players to embark on epic quests, explore vast lands, and vanquish terrifying enemies — all from the comfort of their parent’s basement. We found QuestLord’s sprite based visuals endearing enough to give it a spin and watch our video below to see how that played out. At a paltry $2, QuestLord gives oldschool RPG-ers a good enough time to warrant a purchase. What I initially expected was nothing more than another stale dungeon crawler, but what I found was a fun RPG that moves beyond the dungeon, allowing players to explore mountains, caves, forests, cities and yes — dungeons. Gameplay is non-linear, and players can embark on a number of side quests from the 100+ NPC (non-playable characters) in the game. Think of this as Skyrim Lite for mobile, and you’re somewhat on the right track.  QuestLord manages to provide players with enough depth to keep ‘em hooked, while simultaneously keeping it casual enough for newcomers of the genre. It’s because of this I recommend QuestLord to anyone looking to level up while on the toilet, and save their land from an unspeakable evil in the process. You can download QuestLord right now in the Google Play Store for $2. [Google Play: QuestLord] |
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Posted: 13 Feb 2013 03:15 PM PST
Folks with the Galaxy Nexus with the “yakju” build line — which is most folks who bought the device internationally and outside the Google Play Store — can now download the latest version of Android. It’ll bring you to Android 4.2.2, build JDQ39, but you’ll have to be coming from Android 4.2.1, build JOP40D, to flash it. You can install it through a custom recovery, sideload it using ADB, or grab a rooted version from the quick folks over at XDA.
The upgrade started rolling out to Nexus devices everywhere this week, and it brought a couple of new minor features and fixed a whole lot of bugs, including a fix for audio streaming over Bluetooth A2DP. This will be your best bet of getting it loaded up on your yakju device if Google hasn’t already delivered the goods straight to you, so get to it!  [via Droid-Life] |
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Posted: 13 Feb 2013 02:22 PM PST
NVIDIA has posted its numbers for the fourth quarter in its fiscal 2013, and the company has a lot to be excited about. For Q4 specifically, NVIDIA posted revenues of $1.11 billion in revenue, which was good enough to drive profits to $174 million. Despite those numbers being slightly worse than Q3 — where revenue was $1.2 billion and profits were $209 million — NVIDIA performed quite well year-over-year. The company was up from $943 million in revenue and up from $116 million in profit in fiscal Q4 2012.
 NVIDIA’s fiscal Q3 2013 was the star of the show, though, as that was a record breaking month for the chipset vendor. NVIDIA says it did its best work in the company’s history last year, and that it would look to continue to ride this momentum into fiscal 2014 on the back of the growing Tegra and core GPU business. President and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang name-dropped the likes of Project SHIELD and NVIDIA GRID as important pieces of the company’s strategy to not only take over existing product categories, but to create new ones in this competitive industry. NVIDIA definitely got off to a big start this year with the announcement of the powerful Tegra 4 platform at CES, and with LTE support baked into it from the get-go NVIDIA could find its wares inside many more handsets and tablets than last year. |
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Posted: 13 Feb 2013 12:57 PM PST
The Samsung Galaxy S4 has been a tough phone to map ahead of its unveiling. Heck, we don’t even have much of an idea of when, exactly, Samsung is looking to bring the device out for all to see. New details regarding the phone’s design and features have emerged from Korean publication DDaily, though, and it pretty much lets us know that the Galaxy S4 is NOT the new Note.
 That is, the Galaxy S4 won’t be coming with the S Pen as previously rumored. Samsung likely doesn’t want to let go of the hold it currently has on the phablet market, and would prefer to keep the Galaxy S and Note series separate. That’s a very sensible approach so I can’t say I blame them. Another confirmed design decision is the presence of a physical home button. The company apparently thought long and hard about ditching the button it’s been using for users, but reportedly decided against it. It certainly is iconic of the Samsung Mobile brand at this point, so the Korean OEM probably doesn’t want to do anything that will jeopardize the small things which make its products unique. We’re still looking for more concrete details on the core specs of the device, though it’s highly likely we’ll be seeing a 5 inch display with full 1080p HD resolution. We also expect some form of a quad-core processor, at least 2GB of RAM, and a very nice camera. We’ll keep our ears and eyes peeled for more information as we head into March and April. [via PhoneArena] |
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Posted: 13 Feb 2013 12:29 PM PST
HTC seems to have gotten a bit teaser-happy over the past week. Yesterday, the company updated its Facebook header with an image showing the February 19th unveiling date for the HTC One (or what we’ve known as the HTC M7). Today, another image has been posted to the Taiwanese company’s Facebook account. The image is rather interesting — the February 19th date once again appears, but this time it seems to be engraved (via Photoshop, probably) into a metallic surface.
 I’m no sleuthing detective, but a quick glance at the out-of-focus areas of the image shows what looks to be a dial or a button of some sort. The piece extending from the right side makes this thing look like a watch band, though it’s really tough to tell in this context. We won’t be pounding our brain too hard trying to figure it out, though, so we’ll leave that up to you in the comments section below. HTC will be in New York to unveil the M7/HTC One ahead of Mobile World Congress, so we’ll be able to get up close and personal with this thing in just under a week’s time from now. We’re expecting something along the lines of the device you see below, with specs said to include a 4.7 inch 1080p HD display, 2GB of RAM, a 13 megapixel camera, a 1.7GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro chipset and more. Android Jelly Bean and HTC Sense 5 should be baked inside. We’re quite excited to see what HTC is banking on for 2013, so sit back and enjoy the ride as February 19th comes barreling toward us.  [via Facebook, thanks Mute!] |
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Posted: 13 Feb 2013 12:01 PM PST
 The Google Search app has just gotten a nice new upgrade in the Play Store. The changelog is geared toward those on Android 4.1+ as most of the new features pertain to the Google Now experience. For starters, the new widget that has been rumored is finally here. It will show things like weather, traffic, stocks, news, sports and more at a glance. You can add it to both your home-screen and (if you’re on 4.2+) your lock-screen. Furthermore, there is now better support for movies. The movies card will now show passes from Fandango, and it will automatically pull in movie ratings from Rotten Tomatoes. Google Now will even tell you what time to leave in order to make it to your movie on time, and will automatically pull up your digital tickets once you arrive. Real estate listings from Zillow will now pop up when Google Now figures out you’re trying to buy a home, and once you visit that particular home to see a showing it will feed you more information about the home, such as price, size, and when it was built. Other features include a music button that pops up when a song is playing in voice mode (this is a US only feature), and it now supports United States college sports, though we’re not sure if every sport — and all teams within those sports — are included. All of this is available right now by heading to the Google Play Store and finding the 10.8MB upgrade waiting for you. PS: If the widget isn’t showing your cards right away, simply open the Google Now app and head back to the home-screen to see it in action. [via Google] |
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Posted: 13 Feb 2013 10:24 AM PST
The Sony Xperia Z is stealing all the thunder, it seems, as people forget Sony has other products in the pipeline. One such product is the Sony Xperia ZL, an Android Jelly Bean smartphone that will look to provide a very nice and solid offering from the Sony camp. It’s close to the Xperia Z in terms of specs, but this device is a tad smaller and thicker in build. It also doesn’t handle the elements of the world quite as well as the Xperia Z.
 That said, its specs under the hood are still quite nice. We can expect a 5 inch 1080p HD display, Qualcomm’s 1.5Ghz quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, a 13 megapixel rear camera with 1080p HD video recording alongside a 2 megapixel front-facing camera, and more. We know everything there is to know about the device, but up until now we were missing details regarding when it’s arriving and how much it’ll cost. It looks like those questions have been answered, though not everyone has reason to be excited. It appears Germany will get the first crack at this device starting at some point in April, as retailer Phone House has the phone listed to ship on that date, and it’s going to go for €599.99. That’s quite the steep tag for a phone that’s not even at the top of Sony’s food chain, but the specs you’ll be enjoying would certainly fit. The device will be available in white and black color options, to boot. We’ll have to wait and see if any other markets are slated to receive this thing, but we imagine much of Europe will have a chance to own one in the coming months. [Telecompaper via Unwired View] |
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Posted: 13 Feb 2013 09:47 AM PST
Fitbit has updated its Android app to provide greater functionality for those with one of the company’s fitness devices. Those with the Fitbit One and Fitbit Zip will find the new wireless synchronization feature especially useful, as the devices can now send information to the Samsung Galaxy S3 and Samsung Galaxy Note 2 via Bluetooth 4.0.
 Also coming long for the ride is NFC support. All you have to do is tap your Android device with your fitness trackers and the app will automatically launch and update with the latest stats that have been recorded. Fitbit is considering these features to be in beta for the time being, so if they don’t always work as well as they should then don’t fret — the kinks are still being worked out. Other changes in this upgrade include the ability to add and edit silent alarms, supports an international food database, adds a distance tile to the main dashboard, and adds new push notification settings. The app is free to download, and don’t forget that you don’t necessarily need one of the Fitbit trackers to use this app — anyone can use it as a fitness tracker if they’re willing to input info manually. Go ahead and download it from the Google Play Store, and see if Fitbit has any products you could benefit from at its website. Read on for full press details. Fitbit Offers First and Only Connected Fitness Products with Bluetooth 4.0 Syncing on |
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Posted: 13 Feb 2013 09:23 AM PST
 Riding demand for low-cost smartphones in emerging markets and a revitalized brand image, Huawei has crept into third place in terms of global mobile sales. The gap between the Chinese manufacturer and top dogs Samsung and Apple, which together account for 52 percent of smartphone sales, is large, but the feat is nonetheless impressive considering Huawei’s lack of a presence in North America. Huawei sold 27.2 million smartphones in 2012, up 73.8 percent from 2011. Still, Gartner analyst Anshul Gupta says, “There is no manufacturer that can firmly lay claim to the number 3 spot in global smartphone sales.” Overall, consumer purchased fewer mobile phones in 2012 than in the previous year. Sales dropped by 1.7 percent. Smartphones, however, are setting record sales figures with 207.7 million sold in Q4. Samsung ranks as the top manufacturer and continues to see growth, while Nokia was bumped from their previous position as the number three manufacturer worldwide. [via TechCrunch] |
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Posted: 13 Feb 2013 07:59 AM PST
Craving more of NVIDIA’s Project Shield? Here’s a quick video demonstrating the high-thrills racer Need For Speed: Most Wanted on the upcoming gaming handheld. The clip shows off the game with all “all the graphics bells and whistles enabled,” but we aren’t getting a true representation of Shield’s hardware. The game is being streamed from a PC, where GeForce GTX graphics processing does the dirty work.
The result is no less impressive, showing a device that can easily handle such streaming without lag or other hiccups. The game is set up to take advantage of Project Shield’s controller layout. NVIDIA’s latest could be the missing link that bridges PC and console gaming with mobile gaming, it definitely fits the description. We’re eager to get our hands on the clamshell handheld and give it a spin for ourselves. [via NVIDIA] |
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Posted: 13 Feb 2013 07:35 AM PST
 We don’t know much about Motorola’s so-called X Phone. The only confirmation of the phone’s existence comes by way of a job posting seeking a product manager to work directly with the team designing the device, but few details have surfaced. Today, however, a report has surfaced over at SmartHouse giving us just enough new info to whet the appetite. According to sources close to CTO Hugh Bradlow of Australian carrier Telstra, the X Phone is being billed as a “game changer.” OK, that sounds like pretty typical smartphone hype, but that’s not the only sliver of info that was gleaned. According to the report, Google has been working on the software side of the X Phone for quite a while, and when the handset launches it will feature an entirely new software experience with features never seen on a smartphone. The rumored debut at Google I/O in May — again corroborated by this report — leads to the assumption that the phone will launch as a flagship for the next iteration of Android, Key Lime Pie. From the sound of things, though, the phone could launch with exclusive software features that might not reach other. This includes putting together Google’s suite of mobile services “like no other manufacturer has done in the past.” Can we expect a non-stock Android device designed directly by Google? The X Phone is headed toward a July launch, if all pans out, and will be available on all US carriers and in the Google Play Store with a pricing and sales model similar to that of the Nexus 4 (or cheaper). Consider us excited. [via DroidLife] |
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Posted: 13 Feb 2013 06:59 AM PST
 Though we expect to see a few new Samsung-made Android slates in the coming weeks, that isn’t stopping the manufacturer from releasing a new look for one of last year’s more prominent models. The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 will be available in Samsung’s Garnet Red deco, the same colors that have graced such devices as the Galaxy S3 and Galaxy Tab. The Valentine’s Day timing of the release is no coincidence. Samsung hopes to grab the attention of the ladies with the more sensuous tone. The Garnet Red color splashes the LTE edition of the Galaxy Note 10.1 for three carriers in South Korea, eventually landing on other shores around the globe. [via Engadget] |
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Posted: 13 Feb 2013 06:16 AM PST
Here is a rather close look at the phone rumored to launch as the HTC One but thus far known as the M7. Yeah, it’s literally a pretty close look as we catch ultra zoomed-in shots of the upcoming device, giving a glimpse of an edge here and corner there, but nothing that paint a clear picture of what the final handset will look like (we have other leaks for that). The video presented here was actually stitched together by a fan using clips provided as part of HTC’s countdown to the February 19th event where we expect to see the phone unveiled. The good news is we can probably expect a few more quick pans over the surface of the new HTC One before the real deal is announced. [via AndroidCentral] |
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Posted: 13 Feb 2013 05:30 AM PST
 A new update is available for the Samsung Galaxy S3 on Sprint. The software upgrade, which brings to phone to build version L710VPBMA6, is nothing earth-shattering. The full changelog “misc bug fixes,” “voicemail application update,” and “SMS 3-digit support.” The update is queued to start reaching handsets today. It should push over the air. As with all OTA updates expect the rollout to last days or even weeks, so if you don’t see it up front or after checking via the “About phone” menu under settings, be patient. [via Sprint | Thanks, Andy!] |
Sunday, February 17, 2013
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